A's take art of celebration to higher level after ninth inning rally pushes playoffs to decisive Game 5

OAKLAND -- Normally, a postgame pie for a baseball player means taking a faceful of shaving cream. But in this season of the walkoff, the A’s have figured a few things out.

“We’ve advanced it,” A’s center fielder Coco Crisp said. “It’s whipped cream. Shaving cream burns the eyes and at some point we had to figure a way to maneuver that because we were getting a few walkoffs and we needed our hitters to be capable of hitting the next day.”

Crisp became the latest A’s player to benefit from that switch Wednesday as the A’s continued their ridiculously improbable season with another ridiculously improbable comeback. This time, the ninth-inning rally against Detroit Tigers closer Jose Valverde resulted in three runs scoring as Oakland erased a two-run deficit for a 4-3 victory that evened the best-of-five A.L. Division Series at two games apiece.

So, in a series finale that will send one of the two teams home for the winter, how do the A‘s top that one?

“With another one,” replied Jarrod Parker, who will become the next A’s pitcher to take the mound with the team’s season on the line. “It’s something we’re doing well right now is preparing for each and every day. Taking it one at a time is what’s important right now. It’s been a crazy run for us and I think being able to stay within ourselves and slow everything down and go one at a time has been huge for us.”

For much of the game, it appeared the A’s were headed for defeat. Detroit starter Max Scherzer limited Oakland to two singles through five innings as the Tigers took a 2-0 lead. And even when the A’s did get on the scoreboard, there was perhaps a sense of dread when Stephen Drew’s RBI double in the sixth inning resulted in him being thrown out as he attempted to stretch the hit into a triple.

And when the Tigers pushed across another run against A’s reliever Sean Doolittle in the top of the eighth and then the A’s left two runners on base in the bottom of the inning, things looked even worse for Oakland.

But in a season in which the A’s fashioned 14 walkoff victories, the end isn’t always as close at it appears with this team.

And when Josh Reddick greeted Valverde with a ground single into right in the ninth and Josh Donaldson followed with a smash off the left-field wall for a double, the Oakland Coliseum crowd could have anticipated what followed.

“I thought it might have had a chance (to be a home run),” Donaldson said. “But I’ll take a double. It keeps the momentum going on our side.”

Seth Smith, the next hitter, then launched a drive into right-center that scored both runners , with Smith legging out a double.

“Reddick was big coming through,” Smith said. “Being down two, you need a base runner. Then Donaldson just missed a homer to tie it up. So you’re trying not to do too much. I could have gotten (Donaldson) over from second to third, and anything else was just a bonus. It‘s just guys playing the game the way it‘s supposed to be played.”

The capper then came with two out, when Crisp -- the only A’s starter to avoid a strikeout on a night in which the A’s racked up 12 at the plate -- grounded a single to right field. When Detroit’s Avisail Garcia couldn’t come up with the ball cleanly as he tried to scoop and throw home, Smith scored and the postgame party began again.

“We just give it 100 percent until the final out, that’s been our M.O. the whole year,” Crisp said. “And it’s not going to change because obviously we’re going to keep going out there giving 100 percent when we go out there whether it’s on the defensive side or offensive side. Things can happen when you do that.”

As Crisp was being interviewed for TV afterward, he received the obligatory pie to the face. And for good measure, he was doused with ice water. But he wasn’t complaining.

“Well, the pie is fine, because it’s tasty and at this point, you’re a little bit hungry,” Crisp said. “So you’re able to eat a little. … And the ice is obviously cold, but it’s a great cold.”

Now, the A’s will be asked to repeat the feat -- or at least win -- in Game 5. Against Justin Verlander. With a rookie pitcher on the mound.

But the latest comeback has against convinced manager Bob Melvin that something special is happening.

“Well, what (the walkoffs) have done is give us a sense that we’re never out of it until the last out,” Melvin said. “There’s a confidence. We’ve done it so many times that there’s always going to be that confidence until we make the last out.”